Resource Capacity Planning

Definition - What does Resource Capacity Planning mean?

Resource capacity planning is a tool used to determine the resources needed by an organization in order to meet future workflow demands that stem from the need to increase capacity or a move to a new system, workflow or business process.

It requires determining the required resources for current workflows and processes and comparing that to the projected resource requirements in order to determine how many more resources are required in order to cope with the increased capacity.

Techopedia explains Resource Capacity Planning

Resource capacity planning involves all types of resources, manpower being at the top of the list, in order to stipulate the ability of an organization to fulfill quality of service (QoS) agreements either internally or externally.

The goal of resource capacity planning and capacity planning as a whole is to determine the organization’s capability to commit resources to new approved workflows with any level of confidence. If it is determined that the organization lacks the resources to improve its capacity, resource capacity planning should be able to give a relatively clear view of how much more resources is required to be able to hit this goal.

A few simple questions lead the way for the inquiry into finding hard facts about the current status of resources:

How will the organization staff or provide resources to all of the new workflows that have been approved and what else will it impact?

With the resource requirement of the current capacity and the daily toils, can the organization commit resources with any level of confidence?

Can we be flexible enough when priorities change?

Can we deliver on our roadmaps taking into account any delays that may tie up our most important resources?